The final results of the European Federation of Photographers (FEP) “Professional Photographer of the Year 2020” competition have been announced. The award ceremony, scheduled for March 22 in Rome, Italy was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was decided to broadcast the live online event. A total of 2,301 works by 276 photographers from 30 countries in various nominations participated in the competition, and the results were announced live transmission on April 4, 2020. Nurlan Tahirli, the member and Secretary of the Azerbaijan Photographers Union (UPA), was the first photographer to win the MERIT award from Azerbaijan in the FEP competition. The photographer, who is a TOP-10 finalist in the Sports category, took 9th place. By posting on his social network page right the after the event “It is a great pleasure for me to bring the FIRST award from Federation of European Photographers’ “Professional Photographer of the Year 2020″ event to Azerbaijan with the MERIT award. I was already happy and very excited when I got to know that was placed in TOP-10. We were invited to Italy in March for ceremony, but due to the known issues in the World there was decision to hold ceremony online, which was exciting anyway and unusual. Taking 9th place isn’t same as 1st, but this is similar to be nominated in Oscar, BAFTA in films and this encourages to try harder. See you in 2021.” he shared his feelings.

Nurlan Tahirli has also received the “European Photographer” (EP) qualification from FEP in 2019.